The present Archbishop of Canterbury describes the position in which the Church of England emerged from this particular controversy. He allows that" She does know and value this special form of ministry for grave and exceptional need." On the other hand he adds, "Suppose we had nothing else to guide us, it would, I think, be difficult for any man, reading [our official formularies] consecutively, thoughtfully, and without bias, to deny or doubt that, while they decisively assert and protect the special occasional use— the medicinal use, as it has been wisely calledof Auricular Confession, they betoken a distrust and growing discouragement of its habitual or ordinary use in the pastoral ministry of the Church." 1

The denial of a place to "Private Confession” in our Reformed Church is mainly due to that serious perversion of what the Church of England allows, which was revived in the Nineteenth Century, and which shelters itself under that name. It is the perversion that is denied, not the sound and sober counsel of our Reformers (whatever it may be called), which breathes the spirit of primitive doctrine, and of Bible truth.

The question is not merely one of expediency or of practice: it concerns the vital doctrine

1 Charge to the Clergy, Dio. Winchester, 1899, p. 30.

of divine forgiveness. We cannot calmly discuss the practical aspect, so long as we are not agreed as to what private Confession and Absolution mean, and while it is urged that the only change introduced by our Reformers was to make optional what had been compulsory.1 Such a theory leaves to us the Roman Confessional unchanged, save in its binding force on every man's conscience.

This is not the verdict of the Sixteenth Century. The late Bishop Creighton said, "The Church of the Reformation allows Confession but not the Confessional." The Archbishop of Canterbury writes, "It is wholly insufficient to say that what happened at the Reformation was that the use of Private Confession, hitherto compulsory, became voluntary." The witness we have gathered from such varied sources leads direct to this conclusion.

Private Confession as taught by our Church is but one expression of that freedom of pastoral intercourse, that fullest possible confidence between

1 The language of Bishops Overall and Morton has been taken to imply that in the Seventeenth Century this was the only difference recognised by some Churchmen between England and Rome on Private Confession. The passages usually referred to hardly seem to justify so strong a conclusion. In such statements it is essential to take into account the circumstances which called them forth, and the opinions which they seek to correct. When made in some particular controversy, as against Puritans or Jesuits, they have a relative value, and cannot be treated as absolute and independent statements.

minister and people, which ought to be encouraged and developed, and which a false view of Confession and Absolution is tending too often to diminish. In that happy relationship which should exist between the pastor and his flock, the value of Confession in time of need cannot be denied but the widespread feeling that something very different to the discipline laid down in the Sixteenth, and more freely urged in the succeeding century, is being introduced into our Reformed Church, has much to do with the unhappy lack of mutual confidence in pastoral relations, which all good men deplore.

Absolution, as taught by our Church, is the application of the promises of God's Word to the penitent and believing soul, whether in private or in public, and the chief reason why so many in these days despise or deny the "benefit of Absolution," is because a mischievous and mistaken doctrine, hardly to be distinguished from that of Rome, is being substituted for the true one. It is earnestly to be hoped that the great body of loyal Churchmen will ere long unite in recognising and teaching what our Church accepted at the Reformation, and refused to alter at the final revision of our Prayer Book.

No words can more exactly express the outcome of this study, or more fitly bring it to a close, than the wise and weighty utterance put forth by the Convocation of the Province of

Canterbury in 1873, on the subject of Confession and Absolution.

"In the matter of Confession, the Church of England holds fast those principles which are set forth in Holy Scripture, which were professed by the Primitive Church, and which were re-affirmed at the English Reformation. The Church of England, in the Twenty-fifth Article, affirms that penance is not to be counted for a Sacrament of the Gospel; and, as judged by her formularies, knows no such words as 'sacramental confession.' Grounding her doctrines on Holy Scripture, she distinctly declares the full and entire forgiveness of sins, through the blood of Jesus Christ, to those who bewail their own sinfulness, confess themselves to Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life, and turn with true faith unto Him. It is the desire of the Church that by this way and means all her children should find peace. In this spirit the forms of Confession and Absolution are set forth in her public services. Yet, for the relief of the troubled consciences, she has made special provision in two exceptional

cases.

"(1) In the case of those who cannot quiet their own consciences previous to receiving the Holy Communion, but require further comfort or counsel, the minister is directed to say, 'Let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God's Word, and open his

grief, that by the ministry of God's Holy Word he may receive the benefit of Absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice.' Nevertheless, it is to be noted that for such a case no form of Absolution has been prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer; and further, the Rubric in the first Prayer Book of 1549, which sanctions a particular form of Absolution, has been withdrawn from all subsequent editions of the said Book.

"(2) In the order of the Visitation of the Sick, it is directed that the sick man may be moved to make a special confession of his sins if he feels his conscience troubled with any weighty matter, but in such case Absolution is to be given when the sick man shall humbly and heartily desire it. The special provision, however, does not authorize the ministers of the Church to require from any who may repair to them, to open their grief in a particular or detailed examination of all their sins, or to require private confession as a condition previous to receiving the Holy Communion, or to enjoin or even encourage any practice of habitual confession to a priest, or to teach that such practice of habitual confession, or the being subject to what has been termed the 'direction' of a priest, is a condition of attaining to the highest spiritual life."